RoustWriter: Blog

This week with Arlene and Jeff:

...Within a few seconds, she had them going again. A little later, she allowed them to walk for a hundred steps. "I'll count our steps aloud, but when I reach a hundred, we will jog again. No excuses. The next step after one hundred will be a jogging one. See the white marker on the tree a hundred yards or so on down the road? That's mile marker number one. At the marker, we'll turn back uphill. Don't even think about it being uphill. Just lean a little forward and tough it out. You can make it. We will not stop as we turn to go back. Understood?"

She thought they had all gasped out something that sounded like agreement. After they made the turn at the mile marker and started back uphill, Morales tried to chuckle before gasping out. "You are going to kill my ass."

"Oh, poo. In a few days, you'll laugh about it. You're just using muscles that you rarely stress as much. Stamina will come; just keep at it. Positive attitude. Positive attitude. I will make it. I will make it," she chanted.

A few minutes later, she allowed them to walk for a hundred steps again.

"You had better have a coffin waiting when we get back to that driveway," he gasped out, his words spaced out and barely recognizable.

The women were struggling almost as much as Morales, but they didn't waste breath trying to talk.

"I don't think I can run another step," Morales gasped out after a few minutes of silence.

"We haven't run the first step - yet," Diana assured him...

Have a goodun;

Roust

This week with Arlene and Jeff:

..."How about you, Adrienné?" Diana asked the young alien. "Were they following Jeff or the crawler?"

Adrienné, still trying to comprehend the frequent teasing interplay between the humans, was hesitant to get involved for fear she might say something that would be considered improper. However, after a couple of seconds of silence, she naively commented, "If we are assuming that the aurochs females were after a male, I might point out that Mr. Morales was there as well."

"Well, he's taken, and they can't have him," Ashley said with a chuckle and a hug for her husband.

Laughing, they walked on down the hall, but Diana noticed the look on Morales' face just before he asked, "The, uh, General isn't here, is he?"

Diana put a hand on his arm before turning to face him fully - the group now stopped in the hallway. "This is my house, and the General is a guest - period. He has not spoken a word about you in weeks that wasn't a compliment. Besides, I have never heard him say anything negative about you. He says he's watched all your videos and continues to do so. And before you put a negative connotation to it, everything was said in a complimentary way. It's time you realized that you are among friends - and that includes the General and all of us. Now, a number of my sister-wives and some of the other women who live here have made a delightful breakfast with an expanded selection to honor you and your family, so let's get to it."...

Have a goodun;

Roust

This week with Arlene and Jeff:

...Fifteen minutes later, and at maximum magnification, there was the faint shimmer of a wormhole just as the First Officer happened to notice the Science Officer tense up, but before he could say anything…

"Science, shields to maximum," the First bellowed. "Guns, all weapons on line," First snapped out even as he reached to bring the shields up himself.

"Shields to maximum," Science repeated as he too reached to activate them, even as the Weapons Officer brought his systems up, but the AI, tied into every system, had already recognized the blip and brought the shields up a quarter of a second before any of them could.

"Weapons on line," Guns said. Then a second later, "There at our three-o'clock low," he bellowed just before they rocked from two blasts from something similar to the Hunter's heavy laser/particle beam weapons. "I just happened to see a movement as it crossed between us and the shimmer of the wormhole."

Helm, "evasive maneuver 3-A. Don't let it hit that sector again. Communications?" First ordered.

Helm acknowledged even as the First kept giving orders.

"I sent the standard warning the second we saw the blip, Sir," Communications said.

"Excellent," First returned, before immediately turning to Guns. "Weapons Officer, let them know we do not appreciate being fired upon."

The First Officer had barely gotten the sentence out of his mouth when every laser/particle beam weapon on that side of the ship lit the attacking pod up with multiple bursts. The defensive pod's shields must not have been designed for that much incoming concentrated energy. Its power plant went in a brilliant blue/white flash even as energy began pouring into the Hunter from three other pods, but the Hunter had already rolled, exposing a different area that still had full shields...

Have a goodun;

Roust

This week with Arlene and Jeff:

...Time seemed to crawl onward, but finally, the Chief called the First Officer.

"Go ahead, Chief."

"I sent the missile technicians back. We have checked and doubled-checked the missiles. They are as ready as we can make them. I will have them installed in a battery shortly. Good hunting."

"Thanks, Chief." Then under his breath, "We are going to need it."

"Helm, proceed at one-quarter impulse to the wormhole."

"One-quarter impulse to the wormhole, Sir."

"Science, let me know the instant you detect the destroyer."

Science repeated the order as he experimented with the sensitivity of his instruments, hoping to detect the destroyer before it could detect the Hunter...

Have a goodun;

Roust

This week with Arlene and Jeff:

..."Oh, crap. Even at this distance, those things look impossibly huge," Kayla said as she realized just how big the aurochs were, or at least thought she did. As they drew nearer, she upped her estimate even more.

They were still out a couple of hundred yards, but basically continued to parallel the river as Jasmine guided the crawler toward the herd. From a distance, the aurochs appeared to be rough-looking cattle on steroids - lots of steroids. Both the sexes had horns, and their appearance was similar, with the largest bull a third larger than the largest female, and his horns were correspondingly bigger.

The horn was comprised of a robust hub atop the head that gradually changed into branches leading out for two-and-a-half feet on either side. Each side of the massive horn then swooped forward and appeared much less cumbersome but more deadly than did the horns of a Texas longhorn. The auroch horns were much thicker and more graceful looking as well. It didn't take a genius to understand that the bull, with his massive build and strength, could be a deadly foe. With the aurochs, even the females would put any Earth bull to shame.

The big bull stood over seven feet at the withers and weighed slightly north of two tons. According to scientists, no auroch bull had been this big on Earth since the Middle Pleistocene, where the bulls weighed up to 3310 pounds. Here on 2214, the auroch - or their cousins - had thrived, seemed plentiful and were even bigger with some of the bulls weighing in at two tons or more.

It didn't take long for the big bull to take notice of the strange thing that made a noise he had never heard while belching foul-smelling fumes into the air. His curiosity piqued a couple of minutes later, and he turned away from the herd to come a few feet in the machine's direction before stopping to bellow and paw the ground. He would not put up with this thing invading his territory...

Have a goodun;

Roust